Law officer cannot say he does not endorse law made by parliament: Supreme Court to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta

A government law officer cannot say that he does not stand by a law enacted by the parliament, the Supreme Court told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Wednesday [Aligarh Muslim University Through its Registrar Faizan Mustafa v Naresh Agarwal and ors]..A Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Surya Kant, JB Pardiwala, Dipankar Datta, Manoj Misra and Satish Chandra Sharma said that the parliament is supreme and eternal and a law officer stating that he does not endorse a law validly passed by the parliament, would be radical. The Court made the remark after SG Mehta said that he does not accept the amendment made to the Aligarh Muslim University Act in 1981 by which AMU was conferred minority status."Parliament is indestructible and it is a Union. It is irrespective of who espouses the Union government. As the SG you cannot say that you do not stand by the amendment. This will be a radical when the law officer tells us that he does not stand by what Parliament has done. As the Parliament of course another amendment can be brought, Parliament is supreme and eternal, indivisible entity under the democracy. How can you say you do not accept validity of the amendment," the CJI said.The SG then asked whether all Emergency era constitutional amendments have to be justified by law officers."That is why the 44th Amendment (which deleted many of the Emergency era amendments) came into being! To remedy all the evils," the CJI answered..The Court was hearing a batch of petitions concerning the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).The questions of law involved in the case concerns the parameters for granting an educational institution minority status under Article 30, and whether a centrally-funded university established by parliamentary statute can be designated a minority institution.The matter was referred to a seven-judge in February 2019 by a bench led by then CJI Ranjan Gogoi.AMU was held to be a Central University by the Supreme Court in the 1968 case of S Azeez Basha vs Union of India. In the said case, the Court also held that a minority status under Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution cannot be conferred on a Central University.However, the minority status of the institute was later reinstated by bringing in an amendment to the AMU Act of 1920. The amendment was brought about in the year 1981. This was challenged before the Allahabad High Court which in 2006 set aside the move as being unconstitutional, leading to the instant appeals by AMU before the Supreme Court.Notably, in 2016, the Central government withdrew its appeal in the matter..Hearing today.The SG today pointed out that AMU gets ₹1,500 crore each year from the Central government.The 1920 AMU Act could not be judged using Article 30 since there was no concept of minority or fundamental rights at the time when the law was passed, he added."I do not want to cite it but one of their members actually wrote to the British saying that we want British rule to continue and that it is a boon for our country. This was the scenario; that is how they surrendered it. There are letters. I am not citing them here."The CJI then made it clear,"We cannot say that a pre-constitutional institution cannot have rights under Article 30. Of course, it can have that, provided it satisfies two yardsticks: that it was founded by a minority and that the minority administers it. Is this statutory way chosen so destructive of them having a minority status post the Constitution? It is only a regulatory statute. Are these provisions only for proper governing of the institution?".The CJI then stated that the bench would decide tomorrow whether the amendment act's validity need to examined. The counsel for the petitioners said that the same need not be done as the Court's examination in the present matter is only with the respect to the Basha judgment. .The hearing will continue on January 30..Read our detailed coverage of the hearings so far:Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4.[Follow our live-coverage of today's hearing]